Springer Journals

04/19/10 Portland, OR

The OHSU Library is a member of the Orbis Cascade Alliance (the Alliance), a consortium of academic libraries in Oregon and Washington. A key membership benefit is discounts on group purchases of electronic journals, books and databases. Last year, OHSU saved over $438,000 by purchasing products through the Alliance.

Springer Journals

For nearly five years, OHSU faculty, staff and students have been able to read all of the journals published by Springer through an Alliance sponsored group purchase. As an example of the breadth of this collection, the OHSU Library subscribed to 74 Springer journals with permanent archival access and was able to provide access to nearly 215 additional health sciences related titles. The collection included thousands of journal titles in other fields, from anthropology to zoology.

In January 2010, Springer eliminated the inclusive journal package. The OHSU Library can now only provide access to journals actually purchased by individual Alliance libraries, rather than the entire spectrum of titles. At the same time, the financial crisis forced many Alliance libraries to cancel significant numbers of subscriptions. The OHSU Library Collection Development Committee reviewed usage, cost, OHSU authorship and OHSU citations for each of the 215 health sciences related titles. Based on this analysis, the OHSU Library has purchased 22 new journals. Alliance libraries saved an additional 67 titles. Unfortunately, OHSU faculty, staff and students will lose access to 111 health sciences related journals and thousands of other journals.

22 health science related journals purchased by OHSU Library

67 health science related journals saved by Alliance libraries

111 health science related journals lost

Hundreds of other journals saved by Alliance libraries

Thousands of other journals lost

Over the next year, OHSU Library staff will monitor interlibrary loan requests to identify additional titles that should be purchased. Your feedback is important to us – please let us know if you would like to suggest a purchase.